When Canadian-based novelist William Gibson helped spearhead the cyberpunk genre in the early 1980s, it seems unlikely that even he could have predicted the extent to which its schizophrenic blend of technology and pre-millennial angst would seep into popular culture.

Video games are no exception, of course, having embraced the cyberpunk mythos with open titanium-prosthetic arms. Perhaps the most celebrated example of this is 2001’s Deus Ex, an action role-playing game that was essentially an interactive homage to Gibson’s bleak, neo-dystopian vision — with the game eventually followed by a mostly-disliked sequel in 2003. Now, almost a decade later, the third entry in the popular series has finally been released by developer Eidos Montreal as Deus Ex: Human Revolution, a smart, entertaining and painstakingly crafted game whose cyberpunk influences are clearly visible in the mirror shades of its world-weary protagonist.

As a prequel to the previous games in the series, Human Revolution opens in the not-so-distant future of 2027; a time when rapid technological innovation has unleashed “augmentations,” cybernetic enhancements that can replace limbs, organs and even brain tissue, creating a new breed of human-machine hybrids. Like Gibson’s oeuvre, the world of Human Revolution is also one in which powerful transnational corporations maintain the status quo from glistening glass skyscrapers, while in the streets, drugs, crime and political dissent run rampant.

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It’s in this murky world of technological and social upheaval, that players take on the role of Adam Jensen; a former Detroit police officer now working as the head of security for Sarif Industries, a powerful conglomerate vying for its piece of the lucrative military-industrial complex pie. When a terrorist attack leaves Jensen critically wounded, however, he awakens to find himself rebuilt stronger and faster than ever before with a series of cutting-edge augmentations. Players must then help Jensen navigate a shadowy international conspiracy as he seeks to uncover who’s behind the attack and what they’re really after.

Human Revolution is, ostensibly, a first-person shooter, and action aficionados will find their itchy trigger fingers satisfyingly scratched by the game’s impressive combat system. Blowing away enemies with high-tech ordnance, however, is only a small part of what the game has to offer. Like its predecessors, HR goes beyond simple button mashing to deliver an immersive action-RPG experience with the game based around four core “pillars”: combat, stealth, social and hacking. Each pillar can be enhanced through the purchase of cybernetic augmentations, meaning players can customize their version of Jensen to suit their style of play, either specializing in one particular area, becoming a jack-of-all-trades or creating virtually any other combination the player chooses.

The four pillars offer more than just a customizable character system and come into play during the game’s impressively open-ended levels. Need to break into a secure facility to retrieve sensitive intel? Players can approach the scenario in any number of ways, whether it be gun’s blazing, stealthily sneaking inside, sweet-talking a guard at the front gate, or hacking the security system. What’s more, the level design is so incredibly fluid there are virtually dozens of ways to complete primary and secondary objectives throughout the course of a mission. It’s rare for a game to offer such flawless, open-ended level design and the possibility for replay is indeed impressive, particularly given that a single play-through of the campaign clocks in at a solid 35 to 40 hours.

Like the game’s open-ended style of play, Human Revolution’s RPG narrative is also all about choice. The majority of the plot takes place in exquisitely designed large-scale environments, and like all good RPGs, there’s a large amount of dialogue and characters to encounter as the game’s intricate storyline unfolds. In the morally ambiguous world of Deus Ex, however, there are no right or wrong answers and players are presented with some genuinely tough ethical dilemmas, many of which raise intriguing philosophical questions, not only about right and wrong, but about what it truly means to be human. The level of detail and painstaking approach to interactive storytelling is indeed impressive, and anyone who has ever doubted the ability of games to offer narratives as gripping and sophisticated as film or television would do well to study Human Revolution‘s ingenious cut-scenes and NPC interactions.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution is a rare offering that shows the potential of video games to fuse a compelling narrative with immersive open-ended gameplay. It’s a game that manages to stand out from a market crowded with lackluster sequels and brainless shooters, offering an action-packed and thought provoking cyberpunk experience polished to a mirror shade shine.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution is rated M for Mature, and available now on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC.